Lanka polls & Tamils

India must ensure that any new Sri Lankan government fully meets the aspirations of the Tamil minority, says N.V.Subramanian.

By N.V. Subramanian (21 December 2009)

21 December 2009: While India cannot openly intervene in Sri Lanka's internal politics, it must prepare to have its voice heard and its views implemented post the 26-January presidential election there -- and in favour of the Tamils it has thus far neglected.

Whereas India supplied a minimum of offensive weapons to Sri Lanka in its war against the LTTE (the shortfall made up by China which even gave fighter jets), it provided complete political support and considerable intelligence and naval patrolling assistance that proved game-changing for the government forces. And because LTTE chief V.Prabhakaran had ordered the assassination of the former Indian prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi, India could no longer remain neutral in the Tamil-Sinhala civil war, and this tilted the final outcome in favour of the Mahinda Rajapakshe government.
Rajapakshe has so far only paid lip-service to Tamil welfare, but with LTTE terrorism terminated, India has vigorously to prod Sri Lanka to deliver whole on this. Events since the end of the civil war far from being reassuring are deeply distressing. In the last ten days of the war, the Sri Lankan army killed at least twenty-thousand Tamil civilians herded in a no-fire zone with heavy weapons. This provoked international outrage but Sri Lanka typically denied it and India, significantly, kept quiet.
And then, as more reports surfaced of the abysmal conditions in Tamil refugee camps, there was a split in the government ranks. The army chief who successfully waged the war against the LTTE, General Sarath Fonseka, resigned in bitterness to pursue political ambitions against president Rajapakshe. Fonseka alleged that army commanders took direct instructions from the government bypassing him to gun down LTTE leaders surrendering with white flags. Threatened with prosecution, Fonseka took the familiar deceitful line of having being misquoted by the media.
Subsequently, another horror story has emerged. In the refugee camps, Sri Lankan army guards traded sex for food with Tamil women. Fearing reprisal in the camps, the women did not speak out against the abuse, until a UK medic locked up in the camp with them for four months made the shocking revelation yesterday. Like with all allegations about the gross maltreatment of displaced Tamils before, Sri Lanka will flatly deny this. There will be proforma protest calls in the Tamil Nadu assembly. And the Manmohan Singh government, as is its wont, will keep mum.
This ignoring of Tamil plight will surely lead to the rise of LTTE II.
The coming elections give no indication that Sri Lanka's mainstream Sinhala parties are willing or able to come to grips with the growing mass of Tamil alienation. President Rajapakshe hoped to be reelected virtually uncontested on the strength of defeating the LTTE. The parting of Fonseka from the government and his being propped up by the Opposition as rival to Rajapakshe has rattled the president.
Reflexively, Rajapakshe is a war president. While he has indicated to implement the "thirteenth amendment plus" which establishes provincial councils and decentralizes power to Tamil-majority provinces, he has linked that to getting a mandate, which would mean overwhelming Tamil votes. Whether Tamils will be in any position to vote in numbers so soon after the war and destructive displacement and whether they will be permitted to exercise their franchise freely and fearlessly are open questions. Even assuming all this happens, Rajapakshe is a dodgy president, who has been ruthless with critics of his regime. If reelected, citing Sinhala sentiments, he may retreat from implementing the thirteenth amendment, leave alone the pluses.
His principal election rival, Fonseka, is no better. The opposition backs him not on the Tamil question but because they want an end to Rajapakshe's executive presidency, which has become a byword for dynasticism, cronyism and corruption. Fonseka, though, would be worse than Rajapakshe in all these respects, plus he is a Sinhala chauvinist, who mumbles support for the thirteenth amendment, and won't move an inch on it. One of his backers is the hardline Sinhala party JVP which will outright reject implementation of the amendment.
In other words, there is going to be more of the same after the 26-January polls, and India, for the larger interest of peace in Sri Lanka, cannot allow this. Earlier, its support for the Tamils was crimped and constrained by LTTE's terrorism, but that situation has changed. In no uncertain terms, both rival sides in the elections must be told that the thirteenth amendment-plus is a minimum pro-Tamil measure to be enforced. The existing Sri Lanka political leadership cannot win the peace in the island by subjugating the Tamils, and India has to ensure fairness for them.
N.V.Subramanian is Editor, www.NewsInsight.net, and writes internationally on strategic affairs. He has authored two novels, University of Love (Writers Workshop, Calcutta) and Courtesan of Storms (Har-Anand, Delhi).
Please visit N.V.Subramanian's blog http://courtesanofstorms.blog.com/ and write to him at envysub@gmail.com

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